Meenakshi Madhur comments : Very interesting piece ! Greatly enjoyed the critique of current affairs creatively entwined with the review of Asoka and personal views of the world!
Couldnt believe it is the same Sunny who writes very analytical and objective posts on the subject of Indo-Pak Relations and US/Pak Alliance ;-) !!!
MM.
Shubhra comments : Beautifully written, Sunny. I must see Asoka now. Word-of-mouth, those semi-nude posters of Kareena, the rather indigestible idea of Shahrukh Khan in the role of a great emperor, plus not-so-rah-rah press reviews had rather put me off the film.
As for Sivan's camerawork, that had been another reason I was prejudiced against the film, for in one of his earlier films, the camerawork had totally overpowered the script, making it little more than a series of lovely paintings.
But you seem to have been powerfully moved by the film, and that is enough to make me want to see it.
Dina Iordanova comments : Great that this article has been posted on the imdb, through where I got to it. I am a British academic researching for a chapter on international epic cinema (as I believe these films are changing the traditional epic Hollywood narrative), and it was so good to see your discussion of seeing the film in a context that is different from the context of Western-based cinemas, which is usually the only one we know of. The film itself did not impress me very much when I saw it on its release in Leicester, England, but nowadays I think of it as an important work of the genre. Thank you. Dina
